Over a ten-month period beginning at the Institute's inaugural symposium in Montreal in 2003, IHSPR and five national partners canvassed policy-makers, managers, members of the public and researchers across the country to identify research priorities for the next two to five years. This process, Listening for Direction II, was intended to refresh a similar exercise undertaken shortly after the inception of the Institute, in early 2001. The changes and, equally, the lack of change, in the identified priorities, reflect the realities of the Canadian health care system. Periodically some new issue emerges, but for the most part, the major problems besetting Canada's health care system are soap opera-like?they remain the same, even if nuanced in slightly different ways.
Those priorities are now guiding investments in pursuit of the goals of the broad "Outstanding Research" component of our second Strategic Plan. Like the research priorities themselves, this Plan will look and sound familiar, yet has also undergone some changes. Most obviously, the major areas for investment and attention are now consistent with CIHR's own Blueprint. Other changes and consolidations reflect the experience of our early years, and the decisions taken by the Institute Advisory Board over that period.
This Strategic Plan is what guides the Advisory Board in making critical decisions about human and financial commitments, and with so many opportunities worthy of Institute support, and so many challenges and issues to attempt to respond to, to which it returns in moments of uncertainty. It provides the framework around which we organize our work, against which we evaluate ourselves, and against which others will evaluate the Institute's work over the coming year.
This also represents the Strategic Plan that we will hand to our successors. Both of our terms, as Scientific Director, and Advisory Board chair, end in 2006. While there is still much to be done in the coming year, we are confident that this document will provide important guidance to our successors and, equally important, will ensure continuity for the communities the Institute serves.
We continue to welcome feedback on our goals and objectives, as well as on the means we choose to achieve them.
Morris Barer
Scientific Director
The strategic goals of CIHR's Institute of Health Services and Policy Research are built around a commitment to five key areas, corresponding to the CIHR Planning, Reporting and Accountability Structure:
Health care decision-makers carry the challenge, on behalf of all Canadians, of developing and implementing constructive change in health services and systems in Canada. To make informed decisions, they need the best available research evidence, provided in a timely fashion.
Goal 1 Identify and prioritize current and emerging information needs of health care decision-makers and the public.
Objectives:
Goal 2 Support the creation and synthesis of health services and policy research in strategic areas.
Objectives:
Canada continues to face a shortage of individuals with the requisite skills and experience to conduct outstanding health services and policy research. With mounting pressures facing the health care system, members of this small research community are increasingly approached to undertake work of direct and immediate relevance to health care decision-makers and the public.
Goal 3 Increase the supply, and improve the geographic distribution of excellent interdisciplinary researchers in Canada who can successfully lead, participate in and translate outstanding health services and policy research.
Objectives:
Objectives:
In order to conduct outstanding research, investigators must work within innovative, supportive research environments, and have access to the best available resources. For health services and policy researchers, this means ready access to the best available research data, whether these data are collected through survey instruments or interview approaches, are located in administrative databases, or are developed from other sources.
Goal 5 Support the development of, and improve access to, health and health service data in Canada to enable researchers to undertake outstanding health services and policy research.
Objectives:
Outstanding health services and policy research requires continuous enhancement of theory, frameworks, and empirical methods, as well as measurement and evaluation tools. Health services and policy researchers have much to gain from the methodological and content expertise of academics, policy-makers and practitioners from disciplines such as mathematics, law, ethics, the humanities, and a wide range of social sciences.
Goal 6 Support the development, enhancement, and use of theories, frameworks, research methods, measurement tools, and evaluation techniques, for health services, health policy and knowledge translation research.
Objectives:
The process of translating knowledge into improved services and systems is not always a straightforward chain of events where knowledge is produced, distributed, received and used.
Effective knowledge translation requires continuous long-term interaction between researchers and users of research, effective synthesis and communication skills for researchers, and a commitment to using relevant research results in decision-making.
Goal 7 Support the identification of, promote the use of, and engage in, effective approaches to translating knowledge.
Objectives:
Partnerships are particularly relevant for IHSPR because so much of the research within its domain is multi-disciplinary. Partnerships are essential not only for the leveraging of funds and the conduct of research, but also for enhancing the relevance, applicability and use of research products.
Goal 8 Develop and maintain relations with relevant organizations on domestic and international fronts in order to facilitate appropriate partnerships in a timely and effective manner.
Objectives:
IHSPR is committed to identifying, adopting, developing and sharing best practices for the management and operation of its programs, initiatives, and investments. The institute strives to create and maintain a work environment that supports excellence in all aspects of its mandate.
Goal 9 Encourage innovation and effectiveness in all Institute programs, initiatives, activities and structures.
Objectives:
The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) is Canada's major federal funding agency for health research. Its objective is to excel, according to internationally accepted standards of scientific excellence, in the creation of new knowledge and its translation into improved health for Canadians, more effective health services and products and a strengthened Canadian health care system. In July 2000, CIHR identified 13 institutes, each dedicated to a domain of research. The Institute of Health Services and Policy Research is one of these institutes.
Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Institute of Health Services and Policy Research
209 - 2150 Western Parkway
Vancouver, BC
V6T 1V6
Tel: (604) 222-6875
Fax: (604) 224-8635
Website: www.ihspr.ca
